Just Fight Already!
by Sarah1281
Summary: The time has finally come for Naruto and Sasuke's final battle...well, almost. First comes Naruto's appeals to stop trying to kill everyone, Sasuke's blatant rejection of facts he doesn't like, and a bit too much fondness for arguing from them both.


Just Fight Already!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: This is not a bashing-fic. I happen to like Sasuke quite a bit, even if I feel that he's completely lost it. And please, don't tell me how the Uchiha really _were_ oppressed because this is just a humor story so it really doesn't matter and it's never really been made clear how they were oppressed.

There was very little that Naruto loved more than a good fight and fights with Sasuke were some of his favorites. He had managed to defeat pretty much everyone else he had faced, after all, but try as he might Sasuke always managed to win at the last minute. His most important fight with Sasuke, the one that determined whether or not his friend would be coming back to the village with him or running off to live with Orochimaru, was lost solely because he hadn't managed to hang onto consciousness and Sasuke had.

It was also one of his most biting failures since it allowed Sasuke to get progressively more insane with those around him either not caring or actively encouraging it. If Naruto had been there, he would have beat some sense into Sasuke a long time ago. As it was, he was getting his opportunity to do so now. Well…as soon as he sorted out something that had been bothering him for awhile.

"I'm sorry but I still don't get it," Naruto said apologetically. "Why, exactly, are you on Madara's side?"

"Because Konoha had my innocent family brutally murdered for no good reason," Sasuke replied glaring at Naruto as though this were all his fault.

"While I'm reluctant to actually believe anything that Madara says _ever_, didn't he say that the Uchiha were planning a coup?" Naruto asked. "If he's even willing to admit to that while he's trying to make Konoha the bad guys then I'm guessing that's probably true."

"So? They should be able to plan a coup if they want to," Sasuke claimed. "If Konoha were a truly free society-"

"Oh come on!" Naruto interrupted. "That is complete nonsense! If the Uchiha had a coup then there would be civil war and so many innocent people were die. Not to mention that all of the other countries, who used to _really_ hate us if you'll remember, would invade and cause even more death and destruction."

"If they didn't want a civil war then the Senju should have gracefully stepped aside and allowed the Uchiha to rule," Sasuke said flatly.

"The Senju?" Naruto repeated. "What Senju? Old Man Hokage had been ruling Konoha for decades and he wasn't a Senju and even when my father was in charge, he wasn't a Senju either."

"But the Sandaime was trained by a Senju and your father was trained by a student of the student of a Senju AND by the teammate of a Senju," Sasuke countered.

"What is this, six degrees of separation?" Naruto asked incredulously. "Obito Uchiha was trained by my father which makes him the student of a student of a student of a Senju."

"Yes and he was brutally murdered and then Kakashi stole his eye," Sasuke argued.

Naruto stared at him. "Really, Sasuke? Really?"

Sasuke had the grace to look a little sheepish. "We weren't even born back then and Madara was around."

Naruto shook his head and decided to just let it go. "So Konoha is now expected to give into every coup?" he demanded. "So what if they did just that and then, say, the Hyuugas decided that they weren't happy and wanted a coup. Should we have all gone along with that?"

"Of course not," Sasuke told him. "The Uchiha rule would have been far superior to anything born out of such a treasonous uprising."

"So it's only treason when it's not the Uchiha doing it?" Naruto asked rhetorically. "I think your sense of fairness may be…slightly lacking."

"What do the Hyuuga have to complain about?" Sasuke countered.

"You wouldn't know since you haven't been here these past four year," Naruto pointed out.

"Well I'm sure that there really isn't anything," Sasuke said dismissively. "My family was viciously oppressed for generations."

"How?" Naruto asked simply.

"Well…I don't actually remember any oppression going on," Sasuke admitted. "But I was only eight!"

"You're not eight now," Naruto reminded him. "Surely you must remember something now, even if it didn't make sense in the past."

"My family went through far too much effort to shield me from that," Sasuke insisted. "But Madara told me all about it so it must be true."

"Madara is a pathological liar who has everything to gain from telling you about your family's oppression, regardless of if this ever really happened," Naruto declared.

"I don't believe that," Sasuke said stubbornly. "He's never once lied to me!"

"I don't believe _that_," Naruto echoed. "You just haven't noticed he's been lying but since he keeps telling you what you want to hear, you haven't _wanted_ to notice."

"He hasn't always just been telling me what I want to hear!" Sasuke argued. "What about when he told me that my brother wasn't evil? I certainly didn't want to hear _that_."

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked shrewdly. "It seems like you've wanted to hear that for years."

"Well none of that matters because what I _want_ to believe has nothing to do with the truth," Sasuke claimed. "Madara told me all about how the Senju were trying to keep us down by forming the police force and making us live in our own compound."

"Sasuke, it's not like the Uchiha were _forced_ to live at the compound, it was just the only place big enough for all of them to live," Naruto pointed out. "And the Hyuugas, who you don't think have a right to complain about anything, all live at a compound, too."

"I bet theirs is nicer," Sasuke muttered.

"And what's this about being oppressed by the existence of the police department?" Naruto couldn't believe it. "You know, I was old enough to remember the police before they were all wiped out. No one was forcing the Uchiha to run it. You all could have refused to have anything to do with it and then it would have either been shut down or run by other people while you were all ninja. If no one else was involved with it, it was only because the police chief had power to choose who would or would not be a part of the police. I would think that that would be a good thing."

"I'm sure no one else wanted to be part of the police since it was so utterly powerless," Sasuke sniffed.

" 'So utterly'-" Naruto cut himself off. "Sasuke, the police were in charge of any and all crimes committed by the civilian population in Konoha which, in case you weren't aware, is most of Konoha."

"But they had no power over the ninja," Sasuke complained. "If ninja commit crimes then the ANBU takes care of it."

"Because it's the _civilian police force_," Naruto pointed out. "The ninja are the military. It only makes sense that they have a different system than the civilians. The ninja answer specifically to the Hokage while the civilians really don't and have much stricter guidelines to their behavior. If a civilian wants to move to Suna, no one cares. If a ninja wants to, they become a missing-nin."

"It's still not fair," Sasuke insisted. "We didn't have any _real_ power."

"If by 'real power' you mean 'the power to boss around your fellow ninja' then no, you didn't," Naruto was forced to concede. "But no one else got the power to boss around civilians and it's not like you couldn't still apply to the ANBU."

"My brother was the only Uchiha in the ANBU," Sasuke revealed like it was something shocking.

"So?" Naruto didn't get it. "There aren't that many ANBU because not only do they have to be the best of the best but their identities must remain a secret and they must also do all those really sucky, traumatizing missions that no one else wants. Who knows if anyone else even applied? Not being in ANBU doesn't mean you're not appreciated. Plus, why would anyone actually _want_ to be in ANBU? I know I don't."

"You're probably just not good enough," Sasuke said dismissively.

Naruto rolled his eyes and pointed at himself. "Was the only one who could take down Nagato."

"So? I heard he could barely move," Sasuke said, unimpressed.

"Well maybe the real Nagato," Naruto admitted. "But I took down all of his Paths of Pein, too."

"After everyone else softened them up first," Sasuke scoffed.

"Why are you so deadest against recognizing any accomplishment of mine?" Naruto demanded, starting to get annoyed. "I mean, seriously. You set yourself up as my rival and keep trying to be better than me-"

"Not 'trying'," Sasuke corrected. "'Succeeding.'"

"Whatever. If I'm your rival then trying to make me look bad only makes you look bad, too, because it's no great accomplishment to be better than someone who sucks," Naruto pointed out.

"But everyone's better than someone who sucks so while it may not make me look the best it certainly doesn't say anything bad against me," Sasuke countered. "Except, perhaps, in my taste in rivals but you were the one who kept bothering me."

"I'm really not that bad anymore!" Naruto insisted.

"You barely graduated," Sasuke said flatly.

"Did you forget what I _just_ said about Nagato?" Naruto demanded.

"Did you forget what _I_ said about it?" Sasuke retorted.

Naruto shook his head again. "Okay, ignoring the fact that at least the leaders in your family kind of had it coming because of that coup-"

"They did not!" Sasuke argued.

"They died so that Konoha would survive," Naruto continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "If you destroy Konoha, you'll be spitting on their sacrifice. Spitting on it and then setting it on fire and grinding the ashes into dust beneath your feet."

"_They_ weren't the ones to sacrifice anything," Sasuke disagreed. "_Itachi_ was the one who sacrificed them. He made that choice."

"And if you destroy Konoha, you'll make that worth nothing," Naruto pointed out.

"It's _already_ worth nothing," Sasuke hissed. "And it never was. And the way I see it, if Itachi killed all of the Uchiha for Konoha's sake but not me, I must be more important to Itachi than Konoha and therefore it's fine for me to destroy it."

"I…don't quite think that was it," Naruto said slowly. "At most, all you can say is that you were equally important. And you were eight and not a threat! Konoha could be more important than you and yet he still didn't see a reason to kill you."

"He killed all the other children," Sasuke pointed out.

"How many survivors do you think Danzo was going to put up with?" Naruto inquired. "Every extra one put you in danger. And even if you _were_ more important, Itachi didn't kill the clan for you but for Konoha. You're making the sacrifice that _he_ made worthless."

"I may not have completely forgiven him for what happened," Sasuke admitted. "He made the wrong choice, that much is clear, but he was only thirteen and they took advantage of him. I remember being thirteen. People do all sorts of stupid things at that age."

"Like running away to go live with a creepy old man with a really long tongue who keeps talking about how he wants your body," Naruto added helpfully.

Sasuke twitched. "Stop making that into something it wasn't!"

"What?" Naruto asked innocently. "Is any of what I said not true?"

"Well…no," Sasuke admitted. "But not the way you're saying it!"

"It either is true or it isn't," Naruto said blithely.

"This is partially your fault, too," Sasuke informed him.

Naruto let out a startled laugh. "I would _love_ to know how you've come to _that_ conclusion."

"According to Madara the oppression got worse after the Kyuubi attack since everyone remembered that he could control the Kyuubi and so they thought that maybe everyone in our clan could, or at least some people and that it was our fault," Sasuke informed him.

Naruto snorted. "According to Madara, the Kyuubi was a _natural disaster_."

"It was!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"Both of my parents told me, independently, that Madara was involved," Naruto told him seriously.

"Your parents are dead," Sasuke said bluntly.

Naruto flushed. "I know that! I spoke to their spirits that were sealed inside of me."

"That sounds ridiculous," Sasuke said dismissively. "And how do you know that _they _weren't lying?"

"Why would they be lying?" Naruto asked blankly.

"To cover the fact that they secretly hate my family," Sasuke replied.

"I kind of doubt it," Naruto said honestly.

"How would you know? You were only a baby when they died," Sasuke reminded him. "Madara on the other hand has no reason to lie."

"Unless you're right about the Kyuubi attack playing a role in their deaths and Madara caused that," Naruto pointed out. "And why are you listening to Madara anyway? Four people in Konoha may have ordered the Uchiha clan's destruction but half of them are dead anyway and the other two are going to die any day now anyway. _Madara_ is the one who actually ended up helping Itachi slaughter them all."

"At Konoha's orders," Sasuke insisted. "He wouldn't have done anything if Itachi hadn't asked for help. He promised."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Oh, well if he _promised_."

Sasuke shoved his fingers over his ears. "Don't presume to understand me! You don't know what it's like to be me! Nobody understands and nobody ever could!"

"Well, yeah, Sasuke if your standards for people knowing what you've been through are that they have been through literally the exact same experiences as you down to the last detail then you're never going to find anyone who does," Naruto conceded. "But most people have less insane standards. Like Hinata and I both don't have a mother and we can sympathize with each other about not growing up with one despite the fact that mine died an hour or so after I was born and hers lived a few years and gave birth to her sister."

"I am not being unreasonable here," Sasuke claimed. "After all, if there are any slight differences then the understanding won't be perfect. Hinata, for instance, doesn't know what it's like to never know either parent and you don't remember losing your mother."

"Oh give it up!" Naruto ordered. "You suffered a lot and so did everyone else. That's no excuse to be a traitor and try to kill everybody."

"I am not a traitor," Sasuke said, offended.

Naruto drew back, surprised. "Did you…did you miss the part where you _just said_ that you wanted to kill everybody in Konoha?"

"I do not consider that treason because I do not care about Konoha and care about my clan," Sasuke declared boldly. "And I have never betrayed them because I have done all of this to avenge them."

"That's all fine and good except that when you graduated you signed up to become a shinobi of Konoha and that means that collaborating with her enemies and then actively trying to destroy her is _treason_ no matter how you may feel about it," Naruto said flatly. "And you don't think what you're doing now is betraying Itachi?"

"Not even a little," Sasuke said curtly. "Besides, what do you know about suffering anyway? Everyone loves you and they're willing to fight an entire freaking war to protect you. You are the only child of a beloved Hokage who wanted you to be remembered as a hero. Meanwhile I was an unloved orphan left entirely alone to try and work things out for myself."

Naruto started coughing. "W-what? Did you just completely rewrite our entire history? I may be the beloved hero and you the despised traitor _now_ but that's because you ran away and want to kill us all and I stayed and saved everybody."

"That's not how I remember it," Sasuke said stubbornly.

"Everyone used to think that just because I had the Kyuubi sealed inside of me that literally _was_ the Kyuubi even though they all knew about the practice of having Jinchuriki and that my mother was one," Naruto reminded him.

"No one could be that stupid," Sasuke claimed. "And if that were true then why didn't you hate any of them?"

"I did," Naruto admitted quietly. "I just didn't want to turn into you."

"Oh, that's lovely," Sasuke deadpanned. "You're such a hypocrite."

"No I'm not! I'm trying to work past that!" Naruto insisted. "Everyone ignored me growing up and it was pretty clear that I was almost universally hated. There were some other things but that was the big one. Being ignored…it's not good for a child."

"Oh poor you, you were _ignored_," Sasuke said sarcastically. "I was forced to watch my entire family die!"

"This isn't a contest!" Naruto shouted.

"Yes it is!" Sasuke shouted back. "And it was all at the hands of my beloved brother who made me hate him when he was all that I had left. I had to feel the pain of losing my family and you never did."

"The fact that our stories have differences doesn't mean my life was perfect!" Naruto cried out. "And it really wasn't. I never had anybody _ever_ until Iruka believed in me. I mean, sure Old Man Hokage was there but he was always so busy that I almost never saw him. If it weren't for Iruka I probably would have turned out to be like Gaara was at first. I mean, did you hear what happened with his father? And I thought his past couldn't be any _more_ messed up!"

"You had at least those two," Sasuke said dramatically. "Who did I have? Nobody."

"You had all your fangirls," Naruto pointed out. "Everyone in our class loved you and hated me."

"They didn't really care about me," Sasuke pointed out. "It was all shallow. They didn't know me and they didn't bother getting to know me."

"Getting to know _you_ is like trying to bleed a stone," Naruto groused. "And so what if that's true? If I, the village pariah, could manage to find a connection or two then clearly _you_ could have made a friend if you wanted to. The fact that you chose not to and remained alone by choice isn't anybody else's fault! If you had tried, you would have other friends besides me and Sakura. I have a lot of friends now because I wouldn't stop trying, even despite what the Kyuubi did."

"I wasn't looking for friends," Sasuke said darkly. "They would only distract me from my goal. I almost couldn't walk away from even _you_ and you drive me crazy. Besides, I was trying to protect people. Having a friend would make them my most precious person and thus someone I would have to kill."

"I don't think that you _had_ to kill them," Naruto said, rolling his eyes again. "And you never killed me."

"Well Itachi was my more precious person, if a bit retroactively," Sasuke replied.

"And all of that's the past anyway," Naruto said impatiently. "Let's worry about the future. If Madara wins then he's going to trap us all in a genjutsu forever…or at least he's going to try. I don't have much faith that it's really going to work but who knows? I don't want to risk it."

"I don't care," Sasuke said flatly. "Why should I care? Madara promised me he'd destroy Konoha so who cares what he does with the rest of the world?"

"Can you _be_ more self-centered?" Naruto demanded.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Sasuke said stiffly. "And I don't care about you anyway. We weren't even proper friends when I left and that was four years ago. It's frankly a bit alarming that you're so obsessed with me."

"I am not _obsessed_," Naruto insisted.

"Then stop chasing me," Sasuke ordered.

"If you want me to stop chasing you then stop trying to kill everybody," Naruto countered.

"That's just not going to happen," Sasuke said flatly.

"For the love of all that is good, you've been at this for _ages_!" someone shouted out. "We know where you guys stand and you're not going to be able to talk your way through this! Just hurry up and fight!"

Naruto and Sasuke jumped at that, the voice knocking them out of their own little world.

"Oh, right…" Naruto said, laughing awkwardly.

Sasuke said nothing but instead chose to charge at his one-time friend.

Review Please!


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